On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:37:18 PST, Fred Baker said:
At 02:32 PM 1/8/2004, jfcm wrote:
Could it not be useful to have a "List of Comments" (LOC) for each RFC?
Where experience about the RFC reading, testing and implementation could
be listed by the authors (or a successor) from experience and questions
received.
These are usually found in the form of working group archives and
subsequent RFCs that update or obsolete the older ones, especially in the
case of standards track documents. The RFC Editor also keeps a log of notes
on RFCs when asked to.
Actually *finding* something in the working group archive can be.. interesting.
There is much that happens during the editing of a reply to an e-mail message
that is totally different than the sort of expository writing that a LOC would
need in order to be useful. They're different skill sets, they're different
mindsets, and vastly different assumptions.
For instance, this note probably won't stand well by itself 5 years from now,
because I'm writing to an audience that has Fred Baker's and jfcm's comments
fresh in their minds, and presumably have an interest in both the thread and
what I have to say in reply to Fred Baker (hopefully, those that aren't have
some combination of threading, killfiles, and delete keys ;)
I remember a few times going back to the big-internet and MIME/ESMTP mailing
lists, and even with the assist of actually having been a participant the first
time around, was unable to track down specific things I remember having been
written. Approaching it with nothing more than "Somebody mentioned something
about that issue way back when", if that much - now that would be downright
scary.
The recent discussion about RFCs, 'Updates', and similar topics would probably
be equally difficult to track down several years down the road.
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